


Protecting What's Mine

by fineandwittie



Category: The Fast Saga, The Fast and the Furious (2001)
Genre: Airstreams, Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Brian is such a badass, Emotional Hurt, Happy Ending, Kidnapping, Love Confessions, M/M, Running, Violence, dom is confused, kind of, unwanted touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:13:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24788278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fineandwittie/pseuds/fineandwittie
Summary: As they are each fleeing, they get picked up by Papa Tran's thugs separately and brought back together.
Relationships: Brian O'Conner/Dominic Toretto
Comments: 4
Kudos: 175
Collections: To remember and cherish





	1. Chapter 1

It was over. It was all supposed to be over. Dom had taken Brian’s keys and disappeared. Brian had legged it the fuck out of there, boosted a car, and driven home to pack a bag. Everyone who needed to was getting the fuck out of Dodge. 

That was how it was supposed to end, Brian thought bitterly. Dom had his freedom and Brian was left to pick up the broken pieces of himself, whatever Dom had left behind. 

He had no right to be so bitter, he knew. It was his own fault, and so he had only himself to blame. It didn’t actually help him move passed it.

He fought to breath through the bag someone had thrown over his head. He’d been jumped on his front porch, on the way out the door. Never even saw it coming. Had no idea how long he’d been out, but he’d woken up in the back of a vehicle with a bag over his head and handcuffs on his wrists.

He replayed the day over and over, worrying the memories like you would a loose tooth. Trying to figure out where he’d gone so wrong. The one thing he’d held onto had been that fact that Dom was free. Watching him walk away had been one of the hardest things Brian had ever done. He wanted, more desperately than anything, to go with him. He’d have dropped to his knees and begged Dom to let him, if he’d thought it would have made a difference. 

But Dom hated him. He’d lied to the man and betrayed him. Any ounce of good will that Dom ever might have had for him, Brian himself had stomped all over.

He wished he could go back and confess before all this happened. Maybe if he’d come clean, Vince wouldn’t be in the hospital right now, Jesse wouldn’t…

He shied away from that thought and tried to focus on where he was being taken and by whom.

The van began to slow as he catalogued details and finally rolled to a stop. Brian was hauled up and out, stumbling when his feet hit solid ground before he was expecting them to. He was dragged across whatever space they were in and then recuffed to a chair, before they took off his hood.

Papa Tran. 

Brian sighed. He should have guessed. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Officer O’Connor. Glad you could join me. I would offer to get right to it, but we’re still waiting for another guest. He should be arriving any minute now.”

Brian’s eyes widened at the manic grin on the older man’s face. No, he thought desperately, please don’t—

So of course, it was Dominic Toretto. Another van rolled up not a moment after Papa Tran stopped talking. The back doors opened and Dom was hauled out in much the same way that Brian had been.

Brian swallowed, taking a breath, and tried to shut down any emotional response he might have. To keep the rising tide of overwhelming panic. “What the hell is he doing here?”

Papa Tran raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Are you not pleased to see your lover again? You thought to be parted, but I have brought you together again.”

“Sorry, my what now?” Brian finally managed to tear his eyes away from Dom’s battered form being dragged to the chair opposite him.

“Why, your lover, of course.” Papa Tran grinned, toothy and shark-like. “My son told me all about the new pretty plaything that Dominic Toretto had found himself. The pretty plaything that turns out to be a policeman and a liar.”

Brian stared at the old man. “Then your son was a fucking moron as well as a shit driver. Dom and I aren’t…I’d never…What the hell is this?” Brian couldn’t bring himself to lie, to finish any of his denials, but he saw Dom flinch anyway. 

“Brian? Bri, is that you?” Dom rasped a moment before they yanked off his hood too. He blinked owlishly, as his eyes adjusted, and Brian watched his face, trying to figure out if he’d gotten any more injuries. The ones from the crash were bad enough…

“Hey, D. Long time, no see. What’s a guy like you doing in a shithole like this? In fact, Mr Tran, what’s a guy like me doing in a shithole like this? What the fuck do you want?”

“Always so flippant. Well, I should think it’s obvious. You stole my son from me. So I am here to take something equally precious from you. From you both in fact.”

Dom’s eyes snapped to the old man, wide enough to show the whites.

“Look.” Brian said, voice low and calm even as he dug his fingers into his palm hard enough to bleed. “Tran, there is really nothing to be gained from this. You’re planning to…what? Use me against Dom or him against me? It’s not going to work. Any emotional connection that Johnny might have seen between us was manufactured on my part. I was undercover. I was playing a part.” Brian shook his head, trying for icy nonchalance and praying that Dom wouldn’t react. “And on his part? I saw it in his eyes out in the desert. There’s no kind of soft emotion in the rage that I saw. I would swear under oath right now that Dominic Toretto would rather see me dead. You’d probably be doing him a favor. There’s nothing between us that you can exploit.”

Brian couldn’t help the way his eyes slid over to Dom, who was staring at him. There was something raw and wounded in his gaze, but Brian couldn’t tell what it was in response to. His mouth was parted and he was panting. 

Dragging his eyes away, Brian turned toward the old man and gave him an expected look. The old man laughed. “Is that so? Well…” He paced over to stand over Brian’s right shoulder. Wrapping a hand around Brian’s throat, he pulled up, pressing his fingers to Brian’s pulse. “Is that so, indeed? Then why is your heart beating so quickly? And why does he look like you just gutted him? Why is he straining so much against the bonds, if he doesn’t care if you die?”

Brian’s eyes snapped up to Dom, who was in fact pulling so hard against his cuffs that there were veins popping out across his temples and down his neck. Something all consuming swelled in Brian’s lungs, but he kept his voice as cold and sharp as he could manage. “Dominic! Would you stop?” He stretched his own neck a little longer to relieve the pressure of Old Man Tran’s grip and turned up to meet his eyes. “Why is he acting like this? Because, you of all people should know, Dom Toretto hates nothing so much as losing.”

Tran bobbed his head in acknowledgment. “Well, that’s certainly true.”

“And as for me,” Brian continued. “What do you expect my pulse to be doing? You kidnapped me and tied me to a fucking chair. I’m pretty sure you want to kill me. I’d say a rapid heartbeat is the order of the day, really.”

“Hmm. Mmhmm. Alright.” Tran said, circling back in front of Brian. “So then, if I did this, then you wouldn’t care at all?” He slipped a small knife from his pocket and, turning, buried it in Dom’s shoulder. 

“No!” Brian jerked forward so hard, he was afraid he might have cracked something in his wrist.

Dom, for his part, inhaled sharply and gritted his teeth, but otherwise made no sound. His eyes were locked on Brian’s again. His nostrils were flaring with how hard he was panting. 

Brian was going to bury this elderly piece of shit so deep, the worms wouldn’t be able to find him. 

He shifted on his chair, not taking his eyes from Dom’s, no longer acknowledging Tran, and the movement pressed something against his leg. His eyes widened a little before he got the reaction under control. Dom was still watching him.

He’s put his cellphone into a hidden cargo pocket of the pants he’d changed into to run. If he could get it out and dial someone, maybe he could get them out of this.

“Ah. Quite the liar, aren’t you, Officer O’Connor?”

Brian snarled at him. “The fuck do you want?”

“First, I’d like to start with you telling Dominic here exactly how you feel about him. If you lie, I’ll take off one of his fingers. One finger for every lie. Are you capable of such truth? But maybe you are good enough to convince me that your lies are truth. Are you willing to risk it? Are you willing to jeopardize these beautiful mechanic’s hands?”

The breath in Brian’s lungs stuttered to a halt. No, he fucking wasn’t willing to risk Dom’s hands. Fuck…

Brian’s breathing was getting shallow. He was going to start hyperventilating in a minute, if he didn’t get this under control. He shut his eyes, thinking it would be better this way. Easier. 

He inched his way into the pocket, keeping his movements as small and slow as he could manage. 

“My mother died when I was really little and my father wrapped himself around a tree when I was eleven. I spent the rest of my childhood either in foster care or juvie. The best friend I ever made is sitting in prison right now, thinking that I’m responsible for sending him there. I was…I was so very alone. Until I met you.” He opened his eyes to meet Dom’s. “You gave me…everything I’d always dreamed of as a kid. A family. A home. Someplace that I belonged. God. Dom, you’re one of the kindest men I’ve ever met. You have this casualness to you, like it doesn’t matter. But it does. You take people into your life and you make a place for them. You’re generous and loyal and steadfast and surprisingly gentle considering you’re fucking enormous. Anyone with eyes could see that any time you interact with Jesse. I…you’re so much more than the file they have on you. You’re so much more than you think you are.”

Dom was looking back at him with wide eyes, lips parted. Tran snorted and bared his teeth. “That’s all lovely and sweet, but you still haven’t done what I asked.”

Brian gritted his teeth, inhaled. _Please don’t touch his hands. Please…_ “I am in love with you.” Dom jerked against his restraints, eyes going wider. “I have been since nearly the moment I saw you. I realized it the first time I watched you drive, raced against you. It was, I like to think, akin to having a religious experience.”

Tran was grinning like a maniac. Dom looked the someone had sliced him open and all his insides had spilled out onto the floor. Brian thought he might be sick. _Please don’t touch his hands._

“Excellent. Well done. So much truth for someone so used to falsehood. Now…” He stepped away from Dom, leaving the knife where he’d lodged it. Stupid, Brian thought, looking at the blade. “I think we’ll turn this around. In the interest of balance. Dominic. I believe it’s time for you to tell Officer O’Connor how you feel about him. If you refuse or lie, I’m going to start carving up that pretty face of his. Or Maybe I’ll hit him with a wrench.”

Dom jerked like he’d been given a full body shock and turned to look at Tran. The mindless rage that Brian had seen in the desert was back, but this time it wasn’t directed at him. 

He didn’t want Dom to answer. Couldn’t bare to hear what the other man thought of him now. He grit his teeth and refused to look away. He’d meet the heartbreak head on.

“Starting talking, Mr. Toretto.” Tran said, stepping up closer to Brian and pulling another switchblade from his pocket. 

Brian almost had the phone in a position where he could press one of the speed dial numbers. 

Dom’s voice, when he did speak, sounded hoarse, like he hadn’t spoken in days. “I want to tell you that I hate him. I want to tell you that I’d kill him myself and save you the trouble…”

Tran was shaking his head. “No, no, no. You’re speaking to Office O’Connor here, not me.”

Dom swallowed, his adam’s apple bobbing visibly. He shut his eyes for a moment before meeting Brian’s gaze. “You lied to me. For months. I’ve been confiding in you for months, giving you…pieces of myself, it felt like. I showed you the goddamn Charger. Do you know the last time I trusted someone like I trusted you? Jesse. It’s been years. You just…showed up with your stupid swagger and your over-eagerness and that ridiculous megawatt smile and you upended everything. The day you and Vince threw down wasn’t the first time I noticed you, sitting there in the market, eating Mia’s shitty tuna sandwiches. Every time, I knew you were there. I could feel your eyes on me. And then you picked me up off the streets and I watched you drive. It was so easy to trust you after that. It felt…like breathing, to tell you things that I’d never told anyone. I should have noticed how little you shared about yourself. I should have noticed that it wasn’t reciprocal.”

Dom stopped, gritting his teeth, and just breathed for a moment. When Tran took another step closer to Brian, Dom lurked back into his confession or whatever it was he was going for.

“Listening to you call in Vince’s injuries was one of the worst moments of my life. It was…like not being able to lift my arms again. It was…a flaming wreckage of possibilities catching fire in front of me. I wanted…to scream, to rage against you and myself for trusting you. But there you were, blowing your cover, risking your life for Vince’s. After you’d jumped onto a moving truck for him. You knew how badly I could react and you still made that phone call because it saved his life. When we were driving away, leaving you standing there, I couldn’t help but watch you disappear in the mirror. Letty was bleeding in the backseat. Mia was crying. Leon looked like he’d seen a ghost. The only thing I could think of was you. Until we got back to the house and I realized Jesse was still missing. What you’d done. I replayed everything you’d ever said to me, every gesture, every look. None of it made sense.” He paused, breathing. “None of it made sense, if all you ever were was an undercover cop, if it was just a job for you.”

“It wasn’t.” Brian’s voice was low and it cracked on his denial. “God, Dom, I promise you. It wasn’t.”

Dom huffed through his nose, not quite a snort. “Yeah. I’m kind of getting that. I told you once that if you broke Mia’s heart, that I’d break your neck. That was stupid of me. It was my heart I should have been warning you about. Because you and Mia? Weren’t ever going to work…Brian, do you know why it hurt me worse than almost anything I’ve experienced to find out that you were lying the whole time? That it was an act?” Brian shook his head, thought he was beginning to get an idea. It sent hope bubbling up inside him. “Because I’d never had so much to lose before. Because I’d already fallen so hard for you that I wasn’t ever going to stop loving you. Even finding out you were a cop didn’t stop me from loving you.”

Brian’s mouth parted on an exhale. Looking into Dom’s eyes and seeing the truth of his words there might have been the most intimate experience of Brian’s life. Whoever said sex was intimate had never spent thirty minutes staring into the eyes of another person while making love confessions. Although, Brian conceded, maybe it was the life or death thing.

He hit speed dial 2, Tanner’s number, or hoped he had. And wasn’t it just telling that Dom was number 1 in his speed dial? Pushing that thought away, Brian realized that Tran might be able to hear the dial tone. “Okay, you’ve got your love confessions. What exactly do you think that proves? We’re in love. Big fucking deal.”

Brian could hear the phone connect. He prayed to whoever was listening that Tanner could hear them.

Tran hummed a little and level Brian with a narrow-eyed stare. “A great many things, Officer O’Connor. Mostly, I just think it’ll be a lovely emotional prelude to the rest of this evenings activities—“

“You mean the torture? What’s it going to be, Mr. Tran, more knives? More suffocation? I hear waterboarding is quite in fashion these days.”

“Goddamn it, Brian. Would you shut your fucking mouth for two fucking seconds running?” Dom growled, watching Tran with eyes gone dark.

Brian remained silent this time. He couldn’t hear whether Tanner was still on the line.

“You say torture, I say punishment. Let’s agree to disagree then, shall we, gentleman?” The old man grinned, wide and wild, a hint of madness born from grief lurking in the edges. Brian shivered. “It always helps to know a person’s weaknesses, after all. For example, if I do this…” He reached down and pressed his hand to Brian’s crotch. The blonde jerked and nearly upended the chair, before getting himself under control again. “Then I know now that it will produce that particular result.” Dom had lunged in his chair again, only to come up short against the restraints. Tran laughed. “As I’m sure any other gestures of…an intimate nature will. Dominic, I must admit that you are disappointingly predictable.”

Tran sucked his teeth, the sound loud in the mostly empty space, as he circled Brian and crossed the distance to Dom. “Officer O’Connor, on the other hand, is much more difficult to predict. For example,” He grinned and cupped Dom’s good shoulder with his palm. “If I do this, I’m not sure what his reaction will be.” He ran his hand down over Dom’s pecs, across the flat plane of his abdomen. He stopped before he hit Dom’s jeans, the tips of his fingers just disappearing into their waistband. Dom stayed perfectly still, eyes drilling holes into the floor.

Brian watched the progression of that hand and knew, without a shred of doubt, that he was going to kill this son of a bitch. The worse he touched Dom, the more painful Brian would make it. 

Finally, as Tran’s hand stilled, Brian raise his eyes to meet the old man’s. He wasn’t sure what his face was doing, but he felt like he’d been carved from stone. 

Apparently, something in his gaze must have conveyed Tran’s imminent demise, because the old man froze and then carefully removed his hand from Dom’s person. “Well. We certainly know who the more dangerous one of the two of you is.” He said with an easy smile. “And it’s not the man who beat someone’s head in with a wrench. You’re going to be fun to break. Now. To business. Should I start with sharp, dull, hot, or cold, do you think?”

Fuck waiting for Tanner, Brian decided. This piece of shit was dead. 

Dislocating his thumb didn’t actually make any noise and he wasn’t going to give away the pain it caused by making a sound. He slipped his hand from the cuff and tried to clock who was in the room. 

Tran and Dom obviously, but besides them, there were only three guards. Brian sighed. Three guards and an old man to contain the two of them? Fucking insulting, if you asked him.

So Brian waited and watched as Tran prowled the space around them, threatening, monologuing. It took, by Brian’s count, eight minutes for Tran to come within range.

In a heartbeat, Brian was up and out of his chair, slinging the open end of the handcuffs around Tran’s neck. He caught the other end on the upswing and pulled tight. “Call off your fucking lapdogs and have Dom released. Then maybe I’ll rethink how many knives I’m going to use to carve you into little pieces, huh, Tran?”

He felt the old man swallow against the handcuffs. He flapped his hand ineffectually and gasped out something that Brian didn’t quite catch, possibly in Vietnamese.

One of the two men who’d dragged Dom in from the car came over and released him from his cuffs. He worked quickly, but at arms length and was backing away before the cuffs even properly released. 

“Tell them to put their weapons on the floor. Guns, knives, tasers, clubs, whatever the fuck they’ve got on them.” When Tran hesitated, Brian let the predatory grin that was hovering around his mouth spread and tightened the chain. Tran choked for a moment, before Brian loosened it again. “Do it. Now.”

Tran stuttered out the order and the guards started shedding weapons. Brian eyed them, trying to calculate what they might need. Guns for sure and he wouldn’t say no what looked like some kind of flash-bang. The guard who’d undone Dom’s cuffs, finally detached a blade of some sort and placed it reverently on the ground, before stepping back again. Brian recognized the size and the construction of the handle. It was some kind of ballistic knife, like the ones that special ops in Russian were issued. They were illegal in the US and most other countries, for civilians anyway. 

The grin stretched his mouth a little more and he leaned in just enough to brush Tran’s ear with his mouth, “I think we’ve just found cause of death, Tran. What do you think? Are you going to enjoy being carved into tiny pieces as much as I’m going to enjoy doing the carving?”

Dom, who had been watching this silently, stood. His movements were fluid and more graceful than someone with a knife in their shoulder had any right to being. He rubbed a little at his wrists. “Jesus, Bri. Stop scaring the shit out of me. Put the crazy back in whatever box it crawled out of.”

Brian’s eyes snapped up to meet Dom’s. Dom was watching him, his dark eyes warm with concern in a way Brian had been convinced he’d never see again. Some knotted ugly thing deep inside Brian’s chest loosened at this and at the nickname. It had always felt like a mark of ownership to Brian. Like whenever Dom called him Bri instead of the whole host of shit that Vince calls him, Dom is renaming him, claiming him.

The twisting, slithering desire for violence that had uncoiled in Brian’s chest subsided a little. 

The corner of Dom’s mouth ticked up in a crooked half-smile. “Better. Now, what the hell are we going to do now?”

Brian jerked his chin at the knife by the guard’s feet. “Wanna grab that for me?”

Dom complied, offering the sheathed knife to him, hilt first. Brian let go of the cuff around Tran’s neck, replacing the restraint with his hand. He reached out and slipped the knife from the case and flipped it, one handed, so it faced Tran. “I’m going to kill this son of a bitch is what I’m going to do.” He ghosted the blade over Tran’s cheek and down his throat, stopping when he reached his own hand. A thin red line appeared in his wake, though he’d put not pressure on the blade at all. He smiled and sighed in delight. “Man, no one gets to touch you like that, unless you’re asking them to. And he hurt you. But we gotta be quick. I called my superior officer while this garbage was monologuing. I don’t know what he thinks is happening, but I imagine the LAPD will be here soon. So, why don’t you go acquire up a vehicle and I’ll clean up the mess.”

Dom blinked at him. At the possessive heat in Brian’s voice and the cold calculation in those unnatural eyes. Clean up the…Brian was going to kill the guards. After they’d disarmed and basically surrendered, Brian was going to murder them.

Could Dom live with that? Was he prepared to deal with such heartlessness?

Those eyes swept the length of Dom’s body while he wrestled with his conscience. They seemed to take Dom apart, break him down to component parts, and then lovingly reconstruct him. His body responded to the fire in Brian’s eyes, shocks jolting out across his nerve endings, cock filling almost lazily under Brian’s gaze. 

Yeah, he was so fucked.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbeta'd.

“Let me get the weapons cleared away before you start…whatever it is you’re going to start, yeah?” Dom’s voice was a little reedy, strained, nearly breathy.

Brian laughed, rich and buttery. He glanced at Dom’s crotch and that predatory smile was back. “Perfect. Grab the guns. We might need them.”

It took Dom no more than five minutes to do as Brian instructed. He stashed the guns in one of the vans and climbed into the passenger’s side. He still had a knife in his shoulder and he’d already been in one wreck today. No sense in tempting fate. Somewhere behind him, in the warehouse, there was a high-pitched agonized scream and three gunshots.

Well…there was no turning back now. 

Brian ambled up to his side of the van and blinked up at him. Dom arched an eyebrow. Did Brian really think he was going to make a thing of this?

Brian shrugged and circled to the driver’s side. “I know a guy who can patch you up. Is there anything you need from the house? After what happened in there,” He jerked his head back at the warehouse and started the car. “The cops were probably pulled from watching it. They’ll want all available units, especially those tied to the case, trying to find me.”

“Are they tapping our phones?”

Brian shook his head, handling the wheel easily as he pulled out onto the street, clearly none-the-worse for wear. “They weren’t this morning and it takes longer than this to get that kind of warrant.” 

Dom pulled out the cellphone he’d retrieved from one of the guards. He wasn’t sure where his had gone, but it was probably better this way. Brian’s had been left behind with Tran. He dialed Mia’s number.

“Hello?”

“Bella, it’s me. Listen—“

“Jesus Christ! What happened? Are you okay? It’s been _hours_! Is Brian—Where did you go? Are you—“

“Mia! Jesus. Let me answer, would you?” She stopped and took a shuddery breath. Dom swallowed a chuckle. “Listen, He’s fine. I’m mostly fine, but some bad shit’s gone down. Brian and I need to get the hell out of dodge, okay? I’m going to need you to pack me a go bag, okay? Can you do that for me? You know what I’d take. I doubt I’ll be able to come back, so…”

“Sure, Dom. Yeah. I can…Fuck. I…Fuck. What happened?” Her voice was strained and watery, but he heard her moving around in the background. 

He gave her the most condensed and sanitized version of events he could. “But Mia…when this hits the news…I’m not sure how they’re going to spin it. But if I had to guess, they’re going to try to pin four murders on me. You need to be prepared for that. I didn’t do it. I didn’t touch anyone, okay? I need you to know that.”

Mia tried to stifle the wounded noise that seemed to be punched out of her at his words.

Brian thrust out a hand. “Gimme the phone.”

Dom glanced at him, but didn’t argue. Just handed it over as dread pooled in his stomach. 

“Mia? No. Please. Don’t hang up. Dom’s telling you the truth. They’re going to say that he shot three guys and carved up a fourth. Or maybe they’ll attribute some of it to me. I don’t know. Either way, he didn’t touch any of them. I did.” Dom could hear the silence on the other side of the phone. Brian paused for a moment before sighing softly. “I did what needed to be done, Mia, to keep your brother safe. To keep him out of prison. I’m going to keep doing it, no matter what the price. Do you hear me? While I have breath in my body, Mia, I promise you, I won’t let them take him. I’ll trade my life for his if it comes down to it. I need you to know that. You don’t have to worry.”

Dom heard Mia say something, but he couldn’t make out the words. They were low and cracked around the edges. 

Brian swallowed, pointedly not glancing at Dom. “Yeah. I know it does. I’m so sorry, Mia. I never meant to hurt you. I just…I didn’t realize. Not until it was too late.” Mia said something else, but Brian shook his head, more denial than attempted communication. “No. I won’t apologize for loving him. You can hate me all you want for what I’ve done to you and your family, but you don’t get to hate me for that. Look, we’ll meet you at the garage, okay? You can say goodbye and we can grab a car. Be there in twenty minutes.”

He pulled the phone away from his ear and snapped it shut. Dom watched him, apprehension prickling over his skin. “Why twenty?”

Brian barked a laugh, harsh and strung out. “I need to swing by my house again. My go bag should be sitting on my porch.” He flicked a quick glance at Dom and his fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “We’re going to need cash. As much as we can manage. Tran had a couple of clips on him that I took and I have a few more in my bag, but ten grand isn’t going to be near enough if we’re going to manage to outrun the cops and the feds both and make it to a non-extradition country.”

Dom shrugged and then had to bite back a groan as the motion strained his shoulder. “There’s cash in the safe at DT’s. Not on the books. Some of it’s my portion of the haul from the truck and some of it’s from off the books transactions, but none of it should be traceable.”

“How much?”

Dom did a quick calculation and licked his bottom lip, unaccountably nervous for no reason he could discern. “About twenty seven large. Give or take a few.”

A tension that Dom hadn’t even realized was riding Brian’s shoulders dissipated. “Good.” He said on an exhale.

The breathy tone and shining smile that spread across his face went straight to Dom’s cock and he cursed under his breath. Not the time, he wanted to scream at his body. Not the goddamn time.

If there would ever be a time, Dom thought, watching Brian downshift. Brian had said he was in love with Dom, not that he wanted to sleep with him. Which, Dom realized, would be the worst kind of torture imaginable. He’d take whatever bullshit Tran had been about to dish out over that any day. To be given exactly what he’d wanted, what he’d craved, for months but not being able to touch? For Brian not to want him that way? He was pretty sure it would kill him, but there was nothing to be done about it either way until they reached wherever Brian was leading him.

The rest of the ride to Brian’s place and then to DT’s was silent. There were no cops awaiting them at either location, so Brian had been right. Mia was already inside the garage when they arrived. She’d turned the office light on, but no others so you couldn’t actually see from the street that anyone was there. Dom sent up a murmured prayer that Mia would not be dragged into this. 

She threw herself into his arms the moment he stepped through the door. Ignoring the flare of white-hot pain that jolted through his shoulder and down his arm at the impact, he wrapped her in the tightest hug he could manage.

“Bella Mia, sis, it’s going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay.” His quiet words seemed to break whatever spell had settled over them because she jerked back and slapped him hard across the face. “Jesus, Mia!”

“You are a fucking asshole, Dominic Toretto! Do you hear me? Do—“

She raised her hand again, but Brian, who had been prowling the hanger looking at cars, circled behind her and snagged ahold of her wrist. “Don’t do that again, Mia. Don’t you think he’d been through enough?”

Mia snarled as she spun on Brian, “Don’t you think _you’ve_ done enough? You son of a bitch, you tore my family apart.”

Brian sighed, not letting her wrist go. “No. I didn’t. If you had time enough to consider it, you’d realize it. I save Vince’s life, Mia. He’d be dead right now. The Trans are all dead too, so you don’t have to worry about them. If I wasn’t here, Mia, Vince would be dead and Dom would be in handcuffs right now. Possibly Leon and Letty too. Maybe you as well. You were all looking at ten to twenty. Dom wasn’t going back to Lompoc. There was talk of San Quentin, if they got a conviction. Which they would have. So I’m going to need you to shut the fuck up and help us. If you can’t do that, tell me now so I can knock you out. We don’t have time for this bullshit.”

She gaped at him, mouth opening and closing like a landed fish. Dom wasn’t much better. Jesus. Where was the cool, calm Snowman who’d turned up at that first race? Who’d grinned his way through Dom’s absolute shredding of his technique? 

Dom had once told Brian that his cool was his meal ticket, but this wasn’t the kind of cool his meant. The man looked like he was carved from ice, staring Mia down with eyes like a killing frost.

After a long, still moment, Mia nodded. Brian let her go and stepped back. “Right. Okay. Dom, which of these cars is okay to run? We’ll need to make it to the Canadian border before it gets reported at least.”

Dom blinked at him and shook his head, trying to focus. He glanced around the garage and then out to the driveway. “What about the airstream?”

Brian blinked. “The…”

It was Jesse’s, so no one would be looking for it. They could slap a hitch one of the cars. That way they couldn’t have to stop at motels or sleep in the car. “Jesse’s airstream. It’s stocked and no one is going to miss it.” His voice broke over this, but he just kept going. “That ’72 LeSabre’s got enough muscle to tow it. And it’s mine. Was moding it to race. It’s nearly finished. No NOS, but everything else should be good enough to go.”

Brian blinked again and stared at him. “That’s…actually genius. No one is going to think of looking for a car towing a camper. They probably won’t check campgrounds or parks until it’s much too late. And it’s a great excuse to cross the border. Alright. Yeah. Fuck. Get me a tow hitch. I gotta make a phone call.”

He pulled out the cellphone they’d lifted from the guard and stepped into the well lit office. 

Dom shrugged, gritted his teeth and cursed himself for it, before going and getting the hitch. Mia helped him attach it, since his arm was basically useless. 

They were nearly done by the time Brian came back out. “Alright. I’ve got both medical aid and a new set of passports on their way to the market. We can head over, get Dom treated, and then come back to grab the trailer. Mia, can you load it while we’re gone? My bag is in the van with about a half dozen guns. We’re also going to need whatever cash Dom’s got in the safe and whatever else you think might be useful. I’m going to probably grab some shit from the market, fair warning.”

Mia nodded, lips compressed into a tight line.

Brian looked at her, sighing again. He seemed to be doing that a lot. “Do you want me to make it look like a break-in? You can get the insurance to cover the missing inventory? That would also give us whatever cash was in the register.”

Mia shrugged. “There isn’t any cash. It gets brought over here at closing every night and put in the safe. And I’d rather not have to deal with all the extra attention a break-in would cause. Plus, if there are any cameras in the area or if anyone is around, they might spot you. You guys don’t need the extra attention.”

Brian nodded, chewing his lip and glancing over at Dom. “Yeah. Good point.” He dropped the cellphone into his pocket. “Alright. We should be back in the next thirty or forty minutes. If we aren’t, get the fuck out of here. Go home and pretend you never saw us. Change your clothes and burn what you’re wearing; you’ve got Dom’s blood on you. In fact, you should do that anyway, just in case they search the house.”

Mia’s jaw tightened, but she didn’t say anything more. Refused to even look at Brian. She just stared at Dom, eyes full of regret and anger and longing. She came up to give him another hug, gentler this time. “I wish I could go with you.”

“Mia—“

“No. I get it. I do. But how do you say goodbye to your big brother knowing that you’ll probably never see him again? Dom, please, I—“

“Mia. Stop. We’ll see each other again. We’ll find some way to contact you when we get where we’re going, okay? I don’t know how, but we will. I promise you, baby sister. This isn’t goodbye. It’s just…for now. Okay? I promise.”

She nodded against his chest, pressing her tears against his skin and clinging to him. He curled his arm around her and held her tight, thinking how small she felt in his arms, like she used to before he got sent down, back when their dad would disappear into the race circuit for weeks at a time. When she was still just a lost little kid, staring at him with big hurt eyes as he stumbled his way through parenting when he was barely an adult himself. 

His heart clenched hard and his eyes stung, but he wouldn’t let her see him cry. He wouldn’t let her last memory of him be that, be broken and soaked in pain. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before calling up a smile. It was small and lopsided on his face, but it was the best he could do when she finally pulled away from him. “I’m going to miss you, Bella Mia. You’ll be okay. Whatever happens, you’ve still got a life here. So live it. For me, okay?”

She choked down a sob and nodded, eyes liquid and wide for a heartbeat, before she managed a watery smile. “Sure thing, Big Brother. I love you, even though you’re a moron.”

That kicked a laugh out of his chest, one that hurt like a bitch, but he didn’t try to swallow it. “I love you too.”

Brian shifted, clearing his throat. “You have no idea how sorry I am to break this up, but we’re on a clock. Our window of opportunity is beginning to close.”

Dom nodded, offered Mia one more smile, and climbed into the passenger side of the most nondescript car in the garage: Vince’s work truck. Brian slumped into the driver’s seat.

They had one hour to get their shit done and then Dom would have to say goodbye to everything he knew and loved. Again.

Well, Dom thought with a stuttering breath. Letting his gaze slide sideways, he traced Brian’s profile in the yellow glow of the streetlights. Not everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this just sort of ends in the middle of the action and I am always complaining about stories that do that, but it feels like a natural break. I didn't want to get too deep in and lose the plot, like I sometimes do.
> 
> I'm sorry that it also seems that I can do porn or plot, but no combination of the two in this fandom.


End file.
